Taiwan has stepped up national security measures, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday, after a former Chinese navy captain was arrested for illegally entering the nation on a motorboat.
“National security cannot be neglected for a minute,” he said, adding that security units had been instructed to “immediately strengthen protective measures.”
Coast guard personnel arrested the man, surnamed Ruan (阮), on Sunday after his boat collided with other vessels at a ferry terminal on the Tamsui River (淡水河) in the north. Before that, he reportedly sailed the vessel into a harbor near the mouth of the river.
Illustration: Wu Jen-chieh, Taipei Times
Ruan is a retired member of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy who had served as a captain, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said yesterday.
Ruan was reported to have said he wanted to defect to Taiwan after having made anti-Chinese government comments on messaging apps.
However, Ruan looks different from previous “defectors” from China, Kuan said.
Photo: CNA
“In the past, Chinese defectors looked like they were hastily recruited by the Chinese government to carry out the task. However, [Ruan] looks more polite and was dressed more decently,” she said, adding that national security officials would investigate.
“Judging by the 18 cases involving Chinese [attempting to enter Taiwan illegally] in the past year, we do not rule out that it is a test that Beijing is conducting, because they all said they came to Taiwan to pursue a life of freedom,” she said.
Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said he met with the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday, as the boat had been allowed to gain access to one of the nation’s harbors.
“The defense of Tamsui River estuary would be key when deploying troops during wartime. However, during peacetime the coast guard and military work together to protect our territorial waters. The coast guard uses its inter-shore radar system to regulate marine activities, and the military serves as backup,” Koo said.
Asked whether the incident was part of China’s “gray zone” tactics aimed at testing the limits of the government, Koo said the ministry has not ruled that out.
“We have already included gray zone warfare in our annual table-top exercises. We need to ascertain whether this incident is part of China’s persistent gray zone tactics and stay on high alert for such a possibility. We will also study how to handle the unauthorized entry of a single Chinese vessel,” he said.
The CGA yesterday told a news conference that coast guard personnel had made mistakes that enabled the Chinese motorboat to cruise all the way to the harbor.
“The radar system operator had locked on to the Chinese speedboat 6 nautical miles [11km] off the coast of Tamsui District (淡水), but they mistakenly thought the boat was a Taiwanese fishing vessel returning to harbor,” the CGA said.
“Even though the operator notified the second fishing port in Tamsui and the CGA security inspection station in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里), they did not ask a coast guard patrol boat to inspect the Chinese boat,” it said.
“The security inspection station in Bali also failed to immediately notify patrolling coast guard personnel to search and stop the boat after it verified that the boat was not a Taiwanese fishing boat,” the CGA said, adding that the personnel at fault would be held accountable.
To prevent radar system operators making errors, the CGA said it is considering using the radar system in conjunction with an inter-shore intelligent monitoring system, which uses an infrared thermal imaging camera.
It said that it would gradually increase the use of drones to help it inspect vessels and encourage Taiwanese fishing boats to install an automatic identification system.
Coast guard personnel would be better trained to coordinate with the military, the CGA added.
Additional reporting by AFP
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS